Our Self-Written Obituaries – Shivani Singh, Bombay

Shivani Singh, 24, was discovered dead in her office cafeteria here in Bombay. She was found sprawled halfway across the lunch table with a slow fan whirring overhead. They say, she overdosed. Overdosed on conversations, overdosed on all the notifications. She was a lover of paperbacks and preferred listening over talking. They say she recently got addicted to the little shiny device with a half-eaten apple at the back, was even spotted smiling at it. No one could pry away the phone from her hand, not even in death.

Ms Singh had a journalism degree from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women but was in Corporate HR–it was stifling, she quipped often. She looked content at the end, at peace even. Her last words came out as a whimper, it was something about deleting the account on Tinder.

Ms Singh is survived by her parents, memories of a pet bunny she called Laddoo Singh, a lot of unused stationery, crumpled bills bursting out of her tattered wallet and an old copy of The Room on the Roof, the Ruskin Bond novel that she held very dear. Oh, also her Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, Zomato, Tinder (shhh!) accounts.

Our Self-Written Obituaries invites people to write their obituary in 200 words. The idea is to share with the world how you will like to be remembered after you are gone. (May you live a long life, of course!) Please mail me your self-obit at mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com.

Ad Enquiries

On The Delhi Walla

The blogger is a devotee of Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Author Arundhati Roy

The Caravan

“The Delhi Walla is one of the city’s best-known flâneurs.”

Time Out Delhi

“The Delhi Walla is a one-man encyclopedia of the city.”

The Guardian

“The Delhi Walla is a celebration of the food, culture and books of India’s capital.”

Biography of The Delhi Walla

Since 2007, Mayank Austen Soofi has been collecting hundreds of stories taking place in Delhi, through writing and photography, for his acclaimed website The Delhi Walla. Every day, Mayank walks around the city with his camera and notebook to track down the part of extraordinary that exists in the seemingly mundane aspects of urban lives. By exploring and documenting the streets, buildings, houses, cuisines, traditions and people of Delhi, his work is also an attempt to give the megalopolis an intimate voice, and to capture the passing of time in this otherwise restlessly changing city.

Mayank is also a daily columnist for Hindustan Times newspaper, and the author of ‘Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District’ (published by Penguin) and the four-volume ‘The Delhi Walla’ guidebooks (HarperCollins).